Meant To Be // Minizerk

2

"I don't mind you asking, you're more likely to get an answer from me than Nathan," I sit up, my back resting against the wall, "I had just turned five when this started to happen so I didn't understand at first. My father was working much longer than he did before and my mother was getting tired of sitting around the house all day. She began going to pubs and bars during the day and ending up in other men's beds. My father found out when someone she had slept with confronted her in a shop when he saw that she had two kids and a husband. We got home and they started arguing, I started to clean as a distraction and it has been a habit since then to do so. I walked past the living room and saw my mother on her knees begging for my fathers' forgiveness, I was too young to understand at first but I began reading more, I read many romance novels and began understanding. Over the last four years, I have seen that same thing at least a few dozen times, mother begging in front of father and the joy and relief that covers her faces as he sighs and nods his head. Nathan seems to forgive her every time it happens as well, he says she doesn't mean any harm but clearly if she didn't then she would've stopped after the first confrontation. I dislike mother for it, our father isn't the same as he used to be. Every morning he would cheerfully move through the house preparing for work. Now? His shoulders slumped, head low and his feet are dragged across the wooden floorboards with every step he takes. The most movement I see from him now is when he takes his tablets every morning. I think they're for depression but I'm not too sure." I hear Nathan's footsteps as he walks up the stairs so I change the conversation quickly before he hears. " The book centres on the conflict between marrying for love and marrying for economic reasons. None of Mr Bennet's five daughters can inherit his estate, so they are pressured into finding security in good marriages. Elizabeth Bennet, the main character, struggles with the societal pressures of marriage and resists Mr Darcy's advances and proposals. Eventually, she finds that she does love him, and for that reason, she decides to marry him." Nathan walks through the door and listens to me speak so fondly of my favourite novel, as he hands Simons drink to him I raise a finger to my lips indicating to Simon to not mention anything to him, as a reply Simon winks and I go back to reading my book.

29/10/19